If you toughed it out monitoring the progress of the 2016 American Presidential election, watching all the debates and following the entire cast of characters, you may wonder where all the powerful inspiration has gone. What has happened to such dashing candidates as John F. Kennedy or Ronald Reagan?
Is this the best we can do?
In that election, the only standouts were maverick candidates, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, who were willing to defy convention and craft powerful visions. Yet it would be a stretch to see either of them becoming true world leaders.
What happened?
What Is Personal Charisma?
Personal charisma is almost a religious quality, something characterizing saints and spiritual masters of rare vintage. It traditionally tied into the divine anointing of kings, such as Israel’s King David, or the Baptism of Jesus Christ in the River Jordan. It literally means “gift” or “grace,” and grace refers to divine favor apart from merit.
One only need think of Morph and Neo in The Matrix Trilogy, where Neo is recognized by Morph to be “The Chosen One.” Neo follows the cycle of the reluctant hero, where he discovers a whole new reality and a stunning new destiny. The Universe has finally recognized his true genius in the digital world, and he has a personal mentor to walk him through all the essential steps to mastery.
Personal charisma is that which makes a person a total standout from everyone around him or her. A charismatic leader, artist or performer is seen as being extraordinarily attractive and compelling, regardless of her actual appearance.
Like great actresses who made a name for themselves in Hollywood, they had everything going for themselves, youth, appearance, talent and intelligence. Yet all that was not enough. There was something else, a “star quality,” that the top agents saw in them from the very beginning.
Why Is Personal Charisma So Essential?
Without personal charisma, you may hold a position of power and influence, and yet be regarded as a mere functionary, a competent manager who is anything but inspiring. Your employees would not even dream of dying for you or following you to the ends of the earth. For them, you are an unavoidable part of their job, someone to appease or outwit, depending on their mood.
With charisma, the world opens its doors to you.
You become Queen for a Day, or Man of the Year, or even Person of the Century. Think of Steve Jobs, coming back to his first company, which was then six months from bankruptcy, inventing the “Think Different” campaign and coming up with the iMac and iPod. In less than 15 years, Steve turned Apple into the world’s most valuable company, and had successfully reinvented six industries. Every time Steve did a product rollout, the public would watch with avid attention his ultimate cool as a stage magician.
Personal charisma is indispensable if you want to make a lasting difference.
The great world teachers, Buddha, Christ and Mohammad, reached out for centuries, touching every single generation since their time. They are truly immortal, no matter what you believe or disbelieve about the afterlife. If you want your influence to survive your brief tour here, then you are going to want to tune into your own charisma.
How Do You Identify Personal Charisma in Others?
True charismatics have an indefinable presence that is utterly transformative. I stepped into a grand symphonic hall awaiting the acclaimed Sri Chinmoy. As soon as the great guru appeared before the audience, I immediately started tearing up. I couldn’t help it!
I also remember seeing Dr. Deepak Chopra at Grace Cathedral speaking in person for a couple of hours. I realized that I had been truly “stoned” for about four hours afterward. What these remarkable men said was far less important than their impact upon my own consciousness.
I remember President Reagan coming back from Geneva in 1985 when he negotiated an end to the Cold War with General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. Everyone in both parties and both houses of Congress spontaneously stood up and gave him a standing ovation before he even began speaking that seemed interminable. You could not watch this, even on TV, without tears in your eyes.
I have watched the Dalai Lama in a large gymnasium on the campus of Stanford University addressing thousands of people with his broken English. Even though language was a major hurdle for him, the Dalai Lama was perfectly natural and unpretentious, like your next-door neighbor. He has a reputation of treating everyone he meets, including the janitor, like the most important person in the entire world.
Are You Simply Born with Personal Charisma?
It is far too easy to cop out and say, “I wasn’t born with a drop of charisma. So why even try?”
People keep forgetting that Mahatma Gandhi, considered by many as the most powerful man in all the world, without even a suit of clothes on his back, took 50 years to realize his dream of bringing down the British Empire.
Two of the most talented musicians to ever walk a stage, Prince and Michael Jackson, constantly worked on their craft. When they were giving a live performance, they were like floodlights, 10,000 watts going off at once. They were more powerful than even the firecrackers arching over their heads. Their preparation never stopped. Their commitment was nothing less than total.
They might not seem charismatic in every area of their life, but they shine in their field of expertise.
Why is it that all the Olympic winners have their own private coach? Even though they prepare eight or more hours a day for years, they constantly assess and correct their performance. Many of the great transformational leaders, such as Werner Erhard, literally studied acting and closely imitated acknowledged masters in the performing arts.
Can Personal Charisma Be Developed to a High Degree?
Charisma is of two types: Personal and Public. You can have extraordinary charisma without a public-facing role. Charisma has a lot to do with Vision, Presence and Mastery of a Craft, any craft.
Charismatic people never seriously entertain that life is meaningless or that they don’t have what it takes to fulfill their destiny. These people have discovered their Higher Self, and have a profound respect for Its power.
They have a spiritual practice that continuously cultivates a deep sense of presence, such that they can be totally there for anyone. They are also committed to their craft, to being world-class. World-class execution requires 10,000 or more hours until you can do it immaculately.
Each of us is born with a unique talent, and a capability of being charismatic.
Most of us as children and adolescents got profoundly discouraged by adults, and typically lost faith in ourselves, in others and often in life, itself. Those of us who remember, who reconnect with Higher Power, can make rapid progress in our adult life.
We can become charismatic in our own sphere, in our own particular calling.
What Steps Can You Take to Become More Charismatic?
Here are eight steps you can take to make you a vastly more charismatic person, someone who can move, touch and inspire everyone you meet.
- Become more present. As you calm down your “monkey mind,” you will start to effortlessly be here and now. Life will become vastly richer and more enjoyable.
- Give up blame. Be willing to look at everything that happens from the perspective that you have something to do with it, even to the point where you see your role in what another does to another.
- Give thanks every day. List daily on a journal page specific things to be grateful for, even if just the shirt on your back. The cumulative effect will stun you.
- Bless everyone you encounter. You can silently say as you meet people, “God bless you.” You will be amazed as your own attitude toward them starts to transform.
- Discover your unique talent. Read Richard Bolles’ What Color Is Your Parachute? and start doing the exercises. You will finally have words to describe what you suspected was always there.
- Open your heart and mind to truly love people… even if just a little. There is something lovable about everyone, even President Trump! There is no one on this planet today who could not use more love, even the greatest musicians and movie stars.
- Decide to believe in what Higher Power can, and will, do for and through you. It is good to reflect on the Christian admonition: “Please be patient with me. God is not finished with me yet!”
- Elect to become a World Citizen, and a Child of the Universe. If all of us decided to drop out and become world citizens, ever mindful of our, and everyone else’s, inherent divinity, we could realize world peace in a single generation.
What Can You Do Today to Become Charismatic in Your Own World?
You need only think of the most famous and popular figure in contemporary spirituality, Eckhart Tolle. Eckhart is one of the most unassuming and plain people you will ever meet. He is shy and totally unpretentious. He has nothing to prove, and yet he has written phenomenal bestsellers. People practically fight each other to be around him.
Eckhart presences everything. He is an excellent listener. His endless mental dialog crashed years ago, and it has never returned. He feels that enlightenment is no big deal. Enlightenment is everyone’s birthright. All we have to do is shut up, and start listening.
Become more interested in others than yourself. Make each person you meet feel like the only person who matters in the whole wide world. Allow only magnificent people to surround you, by acknowledging the magnificence of everyone who crosses your path.
You might just become wildly popular, and far more charismatic than you ever imagined possible!
Let us know if you think otherwise... in the comments area below.
What Does Personal Charisma Really Mean? Do You Have It? appeared first on http://consciousowl.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment